


A Surprise Trip and Other Surprises

by secace



Series: Reincarnation AU [2]
Category: Arthurian Literature - Fandom, Arthurian Mythology, Arthurian Mythology & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M, Sharing a Bed, eh whatever, enjoy, finally it is canon!!, happy valentines day, immediately following their scene in the last chapter, its corny, takes place after the main fic, technically, what else to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 09:00:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29451198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secace/pseuds/secace
Summary: “Ah, yes. And they are very irritating. Very well. You want to-- I used to do this in undergrad, do you want to go to the airport, point at the departure screen blindfolded and then go wherever you’re pointing?”Lancelot blinked. “You-- this is a thing you do?”“In undergrad,” Gawain emphasized, as if this made a great deal of difference. “Yes or no?”“Sure,” Lancelot found himself saying.
Relationships: Gawain/Lancelot du Lac (Arthurian)
Series: Reincarnation AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1664989
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	A Surprise Trip and Other Surprises

**Author's Note:**

> HIIII HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!!!! as said in the tags this takes place directly following the last scene in rt2 and probably wont make much since if u havent read that lol sorry. it is canon to rt2, if that matters lol. love yall for reading!!!

The pleasant afternoon was passing gently into a pleasant evening, the sky purpling like a ripening plum as Gawain slipped his key into the ignition. The car awoke with a sleek quiet hum, and Lancelot saw Gawain pull out his phone as he settled into the shotgun seat. The corner of Gawain’s mouth twisted up with amused disgruntlement at what he saw.

“Don’t have to grade those quizzes anymore. The professor had a crisis about the existence of real magic, quite her job and moved to Siberia to live as a snow hermit. So, you know, class is cancelled.”

Lancelot nodded. This all seemed very sensible to him. “It would be nice to be a Siberian snow hermit.”

Gawain looked skeptical. “Only if your hut had central heating. You don’t even let me put the thermostat below seventy-five.”

“Maybe I could be a hermit in Florida,” he suggested, then, as if a continuation of the same thought, “are-- any of the groceries-- do they need refrigerated?”

Considering this, Gawain turned back in his seat to look at the bags. “Some produce but, you know, I could probably use my Incredible Magical Abilities,” he wiggled his fingers as if to suggest such abilities. 

It didn’t look very convincing, and after a moment, a bunch of lavender hyacinths ballooned up from the cupholder. Gawain stared at them in embarrassed silence, and Lancelot politely didn’t comment. After a few beats too long, he turned back into his seat and went on with the conversation as if it hadn’t happened. “Why do you ask? You want to go somewhere?”

Lancelot shrugged with sudden hesitance. “Your brother and the rest are probably still at the apartment-- is all.” 

Still hanging around and heckling him, which was fine really, because he was certainly used enough to it, and he had killed them, so it was probably fair. Except that was back to the world of people who only thought of the events of a week prior as they affected them, and to congratulate themselves on a job well done; not to reflect with guilty dread how close-- 

“Ah, yes. And they are very irritating. Very well. You want to-- I used to do this in undergrad, do you want to go to the airport, point at the departure screen blindfolded and then go wherever you’re pointing?”

Lancelot blinked. “You-- this is a thing you do?”

“In undergrad,” Gawain emphasized, as if this made a great deal of difference. “Yes or no?”

“Sure,” Lancelot found himself saying. Which is how they ended up at the airport, after an hour of goodnaturedly bickering over radio stations and AC settings, standing in front of the massive departure screen. Around them, the airport was abustle, having only opened back up a few days before. The halls were crowded with excited families and much less excited businesspeople. 

Occasionally, a traveller with horns, or antlers or hooved feet or merely an aura of preternaturality would pass, and the crowd would part to watch in amazement as this odd stranger purchased an airline ticket at the counter, with various degrees of understanding of how the process worked. But they were curious about such things, and the stewardesses were happy enough to accept ancient gold or magical drinking horns as payment.

“Okay,” Gawain covered his eyes with one hand and stepped forward, towards the screen.

“No, hold on,” suspicious, Lancelot stopped him. “No, I know you too well for that. You’ll peek and send us to Rome.”

Gawain shrugged, admitting he’d been caught. “Alright, fine. What do you have for a blindfold, then?”

He pulled a checkered neckerchief from his pocket in reply.

“You’re a dork,” Gawain said with sudden fondness, then tore the kerchief from Lancelot's hand before he could think to respond. 

And in what seemed like minutes, but couldn’t possibly have been, they were into the cavernous penetralia of a plane, which Lancelot had, in his singular previous experience, found claustrophobic but had now taken on a harmless whimsy. An impression certainly not hindered by the significantly nicer grade of seats and only improved by their abuse of the in-flight drinks; and when Gawain leaned across him to point out features of geographic interest out the window and ended up practically in his lap for half the flight, he really didn’t mind it.

The evening had ripened into a mulberry night, where the spattering of stars and the street lamps, headlights and glowing neon signs all looked like the same haloed angels. It progressed with the lovely gaussian effect that let seconds flow into each other, as natural as blood pumped through the vessels of the body, from which random snapshots stood out starkly. There was a homely grey wall covered in creeping vines, there was a smiling woman in white, champagne glasses and other glasses, and someone playing an instrument Lancelot couldn’t put a name to, and a hundred other things which were both picturesque and meaningless.

So when he awoke in a strange room in a strange bed with his head hurting, he did have a general idea as to how such a state of affairs could come to be. Following a brief moment of heart-pounding panic, skillfully suppressed, he sat up and took stock. 

“Good morning!” Gawain said, frankly far too chipper for so hungover in the morning. He was seated in the window, frow which white curtains were pulled back to let in thankfully weak sunlight. His eyes were shadowed and his hair was messy-- Lancelot felt a brief and embarrassing urge to run his hands through those curls-- but otherwise he was as bright eyed and chipper as he usually was in the morning, wearing the wrinkled clothes he had been yesterday, shirt significantly unbuttoned. “Tylenol on the bedside. I wanted to order room service, but I don’t know what language they speak here. Or where we are. So I thought I’d see if you remembered. Do you?”

Lancelot groggily searched his memory. “No, sorry.”

Nodding, Gawain opened the window-- they appeared to be on the second floor-- and stuck his head out. “Hey!” He yelled, presumably at a passer-by. “What country is this?”

There was a pause in which someone must have responded in indication of not speaking English. Gawain frowned and tried again. “In qual paese siamo?”

This must have been effective, as he nodded, thanked the hapless person below, and retreated from the window. He turned to Lancelot, still sitting up in the rumpled king bed. “We’re in Romania. But it’s you, know, same language family as Italian so I think I can get by speaking slowly.”

This probably begged the question of why they were in Romania, but Lancelot wasn’t the sort of person who asked those sorts of questions. “I’ve never been to Romania before. I heard they have a cursed forest.”

“We’ll have to watch out for that,” Gawain said mildly. “Well, let’s see if this telephone works.”

The telephone did work, and after a few minutes of trying to speak Italian slowly, then French slowly, then finding out that the receptionist spoke English, Gawain finally managed to order an absurd amount of pancakes, and was soon waiting in anticipation. 

Lancelot dragged himself from the bed to steal an overpriced bottle of water from the minifridge, nursed it while he went through his mind trying to arrange his memories into sensible order. 

The food hadn’t even arrived by the time Gawain's cell phone started ringing. Following his adventure in the other world, he’d gotten some sort of custom made high tech flip phone. It didn’t connect to the internet, but it did measure barometric pressure and double as a thermometer and microscope, somehow. It also had very high quality speakers, which was how Lancelot could hear Agravaine yell  _ what the fuck _ from across the hotel room.

“Goodmorning Aggs,” Gawain said pleasantly.

_ “How could you fucking do this? How stupid are you?” _

Gawain looked at Lancelot with one eyebrow raised curiously. “I left Renard with plenty of food in his bowl if that’s what you’re referring to.”

_ “Don’t-- you-- don’t fucking act coy you asshole! I thought you-- fuck. You are such a bastard.” _

“Ah, Aggs,” Gawain started, now just slightly concerned at his tone _.  _ But there was only a dial tone. Gawain snapped his phone shut. “Huh. Wonder what that was about.”

Lancelot barely had time to shrug before the phone rang again.

"Che vuoi?" Gawain said, flipping it back open. “Hey, Mordred, Aggs was acting really-- oh, you’re mad too. Mhm? What?”

At Lancelot's confused expression, Gawain nodded, put a finger to his lips, then pressed a button on his phone. Mordred's irate voice filled the room. 

_ “You’re a traitor and I’m removing you from the group chat again. Traitor. Traitor. Traitor. Traitor. I’m filling your home with deadly traps because I hate you. Rot in hell.” _

Then he, too, hung up. 

“Well this is getting more and more mysterious,” Gawain said pleasantly.

Lancelot opened his mouth to respond and ended up with a sigh. “How are you--” he waved a hand at Gawain, massaging his temple with the other. “Chipper.”

“Oh, there's a vending machine in the hall. I’ve had like eight energy drinks. I might die but I feel great.”

“Ah.”

Next was Hector. “Palms Casino Resort reception would you like to book a room?”

Lancelot stifled a laugh and Gawain grinned and winked at him. 

_ “Why would you do this?” _ Hector said.  _ “You’re being very mean, Gawain.” _

“Okay, fine, this isn’t a resort, this is Wendys. Can I get you a five-for-five--”

_ “Gawain. This is just like the cow vision. Look into your heart.” _

“What?”

_ “This is just like the cow field vision about how mean you are. We were all murdered, you can’t take it personally. Also, what if the wifi code for your apartment?” _

Gawain narrowed his eyes. “Why are you at my apartment? Renard, if you can hear me, attack! Attack and kill!”

A brief silence.  _ “He’s sleeping. Please remember the cow vision. Thank you. I’ll ask Lionel for the password.”  _

Then Hector, too, hung up. Gawain threw himself onto the bed next to Lancelot with a put upon sigh. “Hm, Hector’s  _ your _ brother I don’t see why I’m getting this phone call.”

“Oh. I left my phone in the--” Lancelot thought for a second. “Courthouse?”

“Smart.” The phone rang again, and Gawain rolled his eyes. “God, I hope this isn’t one of my relatives.” 

Then he answered in a slow, sultry voice. “Hey handsome, I’d love to talk to you, only £1.50 a minute.”

Lancelot bit down on a bark of startled laugher, feeling his face turn red.

_ “I-- uh-- huh-- what?” _ said Lionel.  _ “Uhm.” _

“Oh, don’t be shy,” Gawain said, with a voice as slow and sweet as honey, a smirk on his face. “I’m ready to go if you are, big boy.”

_ “I’m-- I’m uh-- I’m uhm. Ha. Hi Gawain,” _ Lionel stuttered. _ “I was-- I was calling to-- haa.” _

“Oh, I know what you called for,” Gawain said, keeping up the voice through a grin, glancing at Lancelot trying not to lose it despite himself. “I’d love to give it to you baby. But my rate doubles for French people.”

At this Lancelot did burst out laughing, and seeing this Gawain’s poker face dissolved, too, into giggles, as Lionel stammered and swore at them over the phone.  _ “You two are-- are such assholes! I don’t even care if you kill each other anymore! I try to do a nice thing and-- and you make fun of me! Okay! Good luck with your mutual destruction you-- you unhealthy jerks!” _

“Aw, sorry to see you go, sugar, it’s been so fun.”

With a final voice-breaking curse, Lionel hung up. Letting the affectation fall, Gawain turned to Lancelot. “So, we should probably figure out what’s going on.”

“Hm, I guess,” said Lancelot, who would really rather throw Gawain’s phone out the window and go back to bed. “I feel like-- gimme a minute, I’ll remember, if people would stop-- fuck.” 

The phone was ringing again. Gawain sighed heavily and answered. “Smith family funeral strippers, you bring the body we bring the hotties.” 

_ “Gawain,” _ Kay said slowly, in the voice that meant he was grinding his teeth to keep from screaming. _ “I’m going to need you to take this conversation very seriously.” _

“Deadly serious,” Gawain said, rolling his eyes with an easy smile at Lancelot, who smiled back, despite the haze of exhausted confusion. 

_ “This is a very bad, stupid idea, Gawain. I know you think everything is funny, but one day it’s going to stop being funny. You don’t remember what it was like last time, but I do, and you were a wreck, and--” _

There was a knock on the door. “My room service is here,” Gawain said calmly, though there was a sudden touch of irritation there. “So I’m gonna go ahead and put you on hold.”

_ “Gawain I swear to God if you put me on hold--!” _

“I am god, Kay.” Gawain hung up on him and crossed the room to the door. An unimpressed twenty-something with a cart handed over insane amounts of pancakes and made her escape. 

“Thank god,” Gawain said, closing the door with his foot and using both arms to hold a towering pile of styrofoam containers. “I can’t handle any more talking to my relatives without fortification. You?”

“Please,” Lancelot said, accepting a container gratefully as Gawain settled next to him on the bed. “And I think it's a deity thing.” 

“Hm?”

“Your-- chipperness. Because you tried a ton of energy drinks last time you were hungover and it really didn’t work.”

The Friday night after Lancelot moved in with him, Gawain had returned home around three am, still prodigiously drunk. Upon helping him to bed and fetching him a glass of water, Gawain had pressed a chaste and thoughtless kiss to his cheek and called him sweet. Lancelot thought about this an unhealthy amount.

Gawain frowned skeptically. “Yeah but these were fancy, Romanian energy drinks.”

“Hm. I’m betting you take, uh, say, two hours to realize “immune from hangovers” is enough fun to brag about that you’re willing to admit you’re wrong,” Lancelot predicting, slicing up a pancake with surgical precision.”

“Damn, you’re right,” Gawain said after a moment. “Am I that predictable?” 

“To me.” 

“I’ll have to mix it up. Take up some really surprising hobbies, or get fun new neurosis. Just so you don’t get bored and move out in favour of the first guy to offer you another free toaster.”

Lancelot didn’t respond for a moment too long, trying to decode this statement, and shoved a forkful of pancake into his mouth to cover. The once-thrice-damned phone uttered a piercing saintly alarm to signal further familial harassment.

“What?” Gawain said into the phone, too irritated from pancake interruption to bother doing a bit. “Oh. Sorry Miss Vivian. Good Morning Miss Vivian. Yes. Very well, thank you. Yes. Uh. I will? Okay-- uh-- yes. Goodbye?”

He lowered the phone. “She told us to hydrate and then warned me to be on my best behaviour. It was so nice and yet so threatening. Have I mentioned how much she scares me?”

“Once or twice.”

Gawain was still boredly torturing the drags of breakfast with a plastic fork when it rang again. “God help me. Good afternoon passengers. This is your captain speaking. First I'd like to welcome everyone on Putanna Flight 69G. We are currently cruising at an altitude of 32,000 feet at an airspeed of 420 miles per hour. The time is 10:46 am.”

_ “I suppose it's nice to hear you in such a good mood, _ ” Yvain said, as if he actually didn’t think it was all that nice.  _ “And I know you’re going to laugh at me for this, but I really am worried about you. I know your brain is a tangled warren of mess that no one understands including you, but whatever part of it decided this was a good idea-- is really wrong.” _

“Yvain, I’m going to be real with you. This game of telephone has ceased to amuse. What the ever loving fuck are you talking about.”

He didn’t respond for a long moment, and Gawain glanced at Lancelot and shrugged helplessly. 

Finally Yvain’s hesitant voice crackled back over the speakers. _ “I-- you don’t know what I’m talking about? Is this another joke? Gawain, please, can you just be serious for one conversation I--” _

“I’m serious that I woke up hungover in Romania to a thousand confusing phone calls and I’m sick of cryptic warnings,” Gawain said, for once beginning to look really annoyed. Yvain had a way of knowing too much, and Gawain didn’t always like being known. “Swear on my cat.”

_ “...okay. Have you seen your social media?” _

__ “This phone doesn’t do social media. It is a working geiger counter though.”

_ “Have you stolen Lancelot’s phone to see your social media?” _

__ “He says he left it at the-- huh. Courthouse. When were we in a courthouse?”

One could almost see Yvain googling if you could seek legal emancipation from a cousin.  _ “Probably when you got married.”  _

__ “What?!” Lancelot exclaimed, forgetting his silence.

Gawain just nodded sensibly. “That does generally involve a courthouse. I suppose that's one question an-- huh? Huh?”

_ “Always takes your brain a while to catch up to your mouth, doesn’t it?” _

“You're so mean to me! Just for that, I’m hanging up. Bye Yvain,” Gawain said, and the phone closed with a plasticine snap. “So, apparently we got married.”

“I heard,” Lancelot said faintly. 

“I’m sure it seemed quite funny at the time.” Gawain quirked his head to the side thoughtfully. “Actually, it is still quite funny, I think. Do you?”

Did he think it was funny? In the sick way Dante’s reciprocal punishment was, maybe. Morbidly funny, like only realizing one was in love with their best friend when they were trying to kill you. Like seeing Gawain stare up at him on the field, bloody and defeated and dying and cursing him with every breath. Almost wanting to laugh the way he had then, at how foolish he was, because the only words his mouth could form were I love you. At leaving the field in silence instead.

Funny, like how after three days of crying in front of a tomb his throat was ribbons and the gasping sobs sounded like the shrieking laughter of one of those loathsome scurrying nameless things he used to slay so valiantly.

“It’s funny enough, I guess.” 

“Hm, though I don’t suppose that,” Gawain paused, frowned and looked at him. “You alright? You’ve gone all pale. Looking like a sickly Victorian poet, which you can totally pull of, it just seems a sudden pivot from your cowboy aesthetic.”

“Headache,” Lancelot said, smiling a little bit at Gawain despite his suddenly subterranean mood. “When do we check out? I sort of want to go back to sleep.”

Gawain shrugged dismissively. “If they try to kick us out I’ll throw money and flowers at them till they let you go back to sleep. If you’re napping I’ll explore, I think. Anything I can pick you up?”

“Uhm. No?” Words were slow again. “Thanks.”

With a smile and a wave, Gawain left, mercifully taking his phone with him. 

Bereft of chatty company, the room fell into a normally comforting silence. Lancelot closed his eyes and listened distantly to the sounds of the city outside the window, and couldn’t bring himself to try working the tv. And against his will, he thought about things. It didn’t bother him, the people who had called in anger. But the concern was needling treacherously at him. Kay’s voice: “ _ you were a wreck--”  _ Oh, happy dagger. 

The moral question of allowing a joke marriage with the person which one is covertly enamored with and also murdered in a past life would be complex even to a man not already challenged by simple moral quandaries like “is killing people okay.” This was probably the juncture at which a more verbally or socially inclined person might call a trusted friend. But even given that and his lack of phone, Guinevere would only laugh at him and Dinadan would criticize his taste. Tristan was out of the question entirely. 

Laying in bed thinking was a dangerous path, so he resolved for the slightly better puttering around and thinking. Mostly he was thinking about Gawain, running through every significant interaction. The window he’d almost fallen from-- fallen-- that was where his thoughts were when he found himself gathering up random objects and piling them on the desk. Instant coffee, tea, creamers, little shampoo bottles, stirrers and fancy bottled water. Remembering his mother’s comment with embarrassed trepidation, he cracked open another bottle and considered the pile.

Barren white walled hotel room. Thoughts. Items. 

They coalesced. 

It was late afternoon by the time Gawain returned, barging in after a proprietary knock with various shopping bags and an enthusiastic grin, which turned to confused amusement upon surveilling the room.

“Had a good nap, then,” He said pleasantly, dropping the bags onto a still unmade bed.

“I know you can afford the damages,” Lancelot said, confidentent in the fact but still a tad uncertain of himself. “Sorry I-- was thinking.”

Gawain surveyed the wall. Across the surface in sepia shades knights and ladies danced with skeletal figures. The figures swept them in embraces, carried instruments, grinned widely and bent in poses frenzied parade, while the people were dragged along, faces of exultant temptation and fear rendered in--

“It smells like coffee. Did you paint this with coffee? It’s very good.”

Nodding, Lancelot pointed to the empty containers on a side table. “Thickened with uh, shampoo. Coffee stirrer as a brush. I-- Didn’t have my phone or anything.”

“It’s really nice. Love those slutty skeletons. Speaking of,” Gawain grabbed for his bags, and Lancelot worried at what connection there could be. “I bought too much stuff because I couldn’t decide what you want more. Let’s see-- here!”

Gawain pulled out a knife, did a fancy flip and nearly flubbed it, and handed him the blade hilt first. An elegant folding knife with a carved wooden handle, Lancelot turned it over with a smile smile and flush. “This is very nice.”

“Oh, there’s more,” Gawain gestured to the bags. “I got bored and spendy. Look at this funny vampire mug. Yours,” this item was handed over rather less ceremoniously, and Gawain was reaching into the bag again before Lancelot could formulate a reaction. “Also, everyone was selling these funny painted eggs, so I got you a dozen. They're kinda pretty, I dunno. Also, this stuffed deer. It’s got a little outfit. Reminded me of-- you know. What else was there?”

“That's-- not all?” This wasn’t the polite response to receiving gifts, but Gawain wouldn’t mind. 

“Consider it a dowry. Oh, here’s the-- fancy wine, yours too though I hope you’ll share. And I found a nice leather market and got you a pair of boots. And this carved spoon-- I think that’s it?”

Lancelot stood in awkward, stunned silence. “Uh… that’s it huh. This is a lot. Thank you?”

“It’s nothing,” Gawain said, but the fact that his breezy dismissal came a bit too quickly signified he was also becoming increasingly aware of how odd a thing to do this was. “I got things for me too, it’s not just you. I got a jar of fancy honey.”

Lancelot surveyed the pile in embarrassed skepticism. “Well, that’s nice. Uh, I don’t want these eggs-- they’re very fancy, but I don’t need them.”

He was aware that this was probably not the polite, socially accepted reaction, but Gawain knew him well enough not to mind, and took this almost with relief. “You’re right of course. I’ll regift those to Yvain, he probably needs them.”

“Vitally,” Lancelot agreed, and leaned back on the eternally messy bed, relaxed now the awkwardness had passed. “Did you only shop, then?”

“No, no, I admired many arches, columns, churches and palaces.” Gawain hopped up on the bed and pulled out his phone to show him a picture of a fancy statue, and their shoulders pressed together. Gawain was always very warm, like he’d been sitting in the sun. Lancelot thought if he could sit with Gawain like this every day he’d surely be cured of his on-and-off anemia and mostly-on melancholy. 

“It’s from the 17th Century, when monastic practice…”

Architecture-- or, or theology? What were they talking about? He was suddenly very tired, and Gawain had a very soothing and pleasant voice, and it was hard to pay attention to the words. He was sure Gawain wouldn’t mind if he didn’t absorb it all. For the first time today, he felt comfortable, headache finally faded into the background, the vague unsettled tension that curled like a snake in his chest stilled in it’s own slumber.

He didn’t mean to fall asleep, didn’t know he had, certainly, till the ringing of Gawain’s phone startled him awake again. For a half awake moment, he didn’t move or flinch, just blinked his eyes as Gawain mouthed “sorry” for waking him and answered his phone, as if the greatest impropriety was to rudely have his phone on, and he didn’t possibly mind being fallen asleep upon.

“Evening, Guinevere,” Gawain said, voice softly lilting. It was evening-- the open window showed a dark starry-night-over-rhone sky behind the rooftops. “Yes, I understand tax policy is set to change. It was a very funny joke and in no way a scheme. Oh-- well, I’m sober now, aren’t I? Guin! If you’re going to be mean, I’ll put you on speaker,” he glanced down at Lancelot conspiratorially. “She’s nicer around you.”

_ “Hello Lancelot,”  _ Guinevere said, cool and steady.  _ “He has a way of dragging you into nonsense, doesn’t he? You’re too good a sport.”  _

“It was my idea.” By this point in the day, Lancelot did have some memory of the previous evening, but this fact was not part of that memory. But he very much appreciated being dragged into nonsense and wanted them both to know. He still hadn’t dared move, for as awkward as it was to have Gawain so patiently putting up with a sleepy head in his lap, negotiation a removal seemed so perilously mortifying he couldn’t bring himself to attempt it, at least not with Guinevere looking on.

“See, Guinevere, It was his idea. I even paid a dowry. Very official. Also, I’ve had a case of wine shipped to your office, tell me if it’s any good.”

_ “You’re attempting to bribe me with alcohol?” _

“I’m sending a generous gift to a dear friend,” Gawain said, which wasn’t a no.

_ “Well I’m taking it of course but that doesn’t mean I’m not still concerned. Your impulse decisions are as funny to watch go up in flames as they are a drag to put out, and I’m very busy at present.”  _

Gawain rolled his eyes. “You have so little faith.”

_ “And a long memory.”  _ Then there was a click. 

Gawain huffed. “She got in the last word. Damn it. We lost, Lancelot.” 

“Better luck next time,” Lancelot said, then went for more words and found none. “Sorry I--”

“Don’t apologise,” Gawain cut him off. “I don’t mind. Not at all.”

With some nervous reluctance, Lancelot sat up, looked at everything in the room except the person next to him. “It’s late. Are we staying another night?”

“If it’s alright. We can fly back tomorrow, not too early in the morning?”

Lancelot was skeptical. “By your standards, seven is ‘not too early’.”

“Yes, well, I’m a very busy person, I have an on the go lifestyle, like people in coffee and tampon commercials,” Gawain rose and moved his souvenir pile to a handy chair, then stretched. “But very well, we’ll find a later flight. Dinner?”

They went for dinner, dressing in yesterday's clothes and wandering out onto the streets in search of food or entertainment or disaster. 

The streets were slick and black from a sudden shower in the late afternoon, the lamplights firefly-like over the musical splashing of puddles and dripping of water off roofs and from the trees that lined the lanes. Lancelot mentioned getting cold, and Gawain took him to the leather market and bought him a jacket. They snuck into an art museum after hours and admired the paintings till they were chased out by security guards. They got street food and met a gang of friendly stray cats, and finally found themselves in the graveyard of an old church.

Gawain was talking about the mosaic art on the walls, and Lancelot was leaning against a three hundred year old tombstone and watching him, and smiling, a little bit. “I’m-- I’m glad that--” Then he stopped. “Nevermind.” 

What had he been planning to say, after all? I’m glad you weren’t beheaded? I’m glad you aren’t upset at me for killing you and your entire family? Neither seemed appropriate sentiments. 

“I’m glad that nevermind, too,” Gawain said with wide eyed faux-earnestness, that dropped into a grin. “Go on then. What were you going to say?” 

Lancelot ran an anxious hand over the faded grey headstone he was leaning against. “I-- when you, you know, stole Bedivere’s phone and broke into my apartment--”

“Trespassed,” Gawain corrected. “Nothing broken.”

“When you trespassed in my apartment-- why-- what were you-- I mean, what was the thought process? I wondered.”

“Oh,” Gawain waved dismissively, but faltered. “I don’t know. Truly. No desire to revenge myself upon you, be assured, but I-- I really did miss you. And I was sure you’d have nothing to do with it all, wanted to forget all of it,” Gawain laughed, as if this were very embarrassing. “For some reason, I was very worried you didn’t want to remember me. It seemed terribly important that you did.” 

Lancelot felt like his breath had left his chest. “I remembered, I swear I-- your letter, you asked-- I did remember. I did everything you asked.”

A tilt of the head to a side, intake of breath-- “oh. Oh, Kay said I sent a letter. I’m sorry, I don’t remember anything that happened after my brothers died. But I’m sure you were, as good to me as you always were.” Small smile. “I feel very lucky to not remember. So really, don’t worry yourself over what happened. You’re my friend now, aren’t you?”

“If you’ll have me,” Lancelot said, with too much emotion.

Gawain frowned. “Are you alright? Is this mosaic upsetting you? Should I burn this church down?”

“What?” Lancelot looked at his askance. “No? I just-- I was just thinking about how you, you almost died. And-- I’m sorry. I’m very out of sorts. I didn’t mean--”

Oh, God damn it, he was crying. In perfect fairness he cried over a great many things not limited to the current turmoil but including sad commercials, loud noises, phone calls and spilled milk. So this wasn’t especially alarming behaviour to Gawain, who merely regarded him with fond sympathy and assured him there was nothing to apologize for. 

“Do you want to start heading back to the hotel? I don’t think we slept much last night.”

The walk back was quietly nice, in a tensely sad way. The rain started back up, slow and gentle, as if to excuse his tears, and the blurring of the lights was soft and painterly. Gawain spoke to him as they walked, the sort of comforting ramble that didn’t demand a reply. 

The receptionist waved at Gawain as they walked in, and Lancelot averted his eyes. Making the way back to their room felt as agonizing and long as the walk back through the city had been pleasantly dreamlike, and his shoulders slumped down in relief when they stepped through the door into the darkened suite. He turned on the light and stood in the center of the room, watching the walls and feeling terribly in the way like he hadn’t for a long time. 

Gawain was rummaging through the bag he hadn’t yet shown Lancelot, and triumphantly pulled out a messy stack of clothes. “I grabbed these from the hotel store before I went out. Change of clothes, toothbrushes and such. Aren’t I clever?”

“Very,” Lancelot acknowledged, grateful to get out of yesterday's wrinkled apparel. He accepted an armload of cheesily branded and likely overpriced tourist clothes and retreated into the bathroom to change, and to cry in the shower without worrying Gawain.

Afterwards, he emerged with a puff of steam into the main room, conditioned air settling like a chill in his wet hair and making him long for the sunlight of the late afternoon. Gawain was already changed and in bed, sitting up against the bedframe and fiddling with his phone, dwarfed by the California king bed and pile of pillows.

Gawain looked up from his phone and smirked. “Cool shirt.”

“Oh?” Lancelot looked down. The shirt was lime green and expressed that he ‘heart (in the colours of the Romanian flag) his hot Romanian wife.’ “Ah. Yeah. I-- I’m wearing your colour.”

Nodding and trying to hold back laughter, Gawain gestured at himself. “Yeah, I’m your hot Romanian wife.”

Lancelot cracked a smile, against all odds, and climbed under the rumpled coverlet to escape the cold of the room. On long quests a thousand years ago, they had sometimes shared beds. Lancelot always found himself bending towards Gawain like a flower seeking the sun, and in the morning he blamed it on the night chill. He turned away to face the wall, staring right into the empty eyes of a coffee skull, which was rendered in hazy shadow when Gawain clicked off the bedside lamp and left the room dark.

“Night,” Gawain said distantly, face no doubt pressed into a pillow.

“Do you even need to sleep?” Asked Lancelot, impulsively. “I mean, being a god?”

Gawain thought about it. “Maybe not. I sure feel like I do. I want to-- if it makes sense, I don’t want it to change my life. It’s fun and all, and I like fruit on demand, but I don’t think I’ll keep it all that long.”

“What?” Lancelot didn’t know that was even a question.

He felt the mattress move under a shrug. “I’ll enjoy the fun for a few decades then hand it off to Clarissant.” There was a questioning silence, which Gawain gave into. “I don’t want to outlive anyone. Not again.”

“Oh, God.”

“Yes?” Stiff silence. “Sorry, reading the room. I really do forgive you. I really do-- you know you’re one of the people I don’t want to outlive. You know I-- I missed you like anything before you remembered.”

This was a shocking level of honesty from Gawain, with no humorous amelioration besides a level of weak sarcastic air, and Lancelot felt the urge to respond in kind. “I did too, I think. Even if I didn’t know what I was missing. It’s-- It’s so lucky you’re an insane person who would trespass into my apartment and break my toaster, really.”

They sat there in this admission, the distant hum of the air conditioner like the lapping of the ocean against a ship. It certainly felt as if they had set off somewhere, into some unknowable vastness. By the time Gawain spoke again, Lancelot had almost convinced himself they had both fallen asleep.

“Do you think we were joking? Yesterday I mean?” Gawain asked into the darkness, an awkward smile in his voice.

He didn’t hesitate to answer. “No. I remember enough to know-- But I didn’t have the right to say-- It wasn’t a joke to me.”

“Nor to me,” Gawain agreed. It was too dark to see, but Lancelot knew him too well not to picture the fond smile on his face, a little self effacing, a little conspiratorial. 

“I’m sort of slow on the uptake,” Lancelot felt sort of breathless. “I didn’t know-- I didn’t realize-- not till you were trying to kill me, and then I had no right to tell you.”

There was a rustling of sheets as he felt Gawain turn to lay facing him. “Tell me now?”

“I love you.” It was easy to say. He was sure this conversation was a half asleep imagining. None of it felt real. Maybe they had never even gone to Romania. He would wake up, in the guest room of Gawain's London flat, or worse, nightmarishly, his own in Manchester. 

“I love you,” Gawain repeated back, like a worshipper in Catholic mass echoing the words of the priest. “Since-- since the year I met you. If we’re keeping track I-- well I suppose I’m pathetic. But there it is. I love you, and I’ve been waiting for over a thousand years to say, and here I am saying it, in a hotel room in Romania. I love you. I’m in love with you. And-- and there’s a spider in the corner and I’ve been staring at it for like five minutes while we fucking--” Gawain was laughing a little hysterically. 

“I’ll catch it,” Lancelot volunteered heroically, and despite the fact that he was crying a little bit he did successfully manage to capture the spider and deliver it to the safety of the window.

“I did have more sappy things to say,” Gawain insisted pathetically as Lancelot returned to bed. The unreal quality of the evening was at a fever pitch now, and he felt all emotions rolling over him like waving and settling as something soft and tired and bittersweet.

“I know. Tell my tomorrow,” Lancelot offered, finally turning towards Gawain, so they were a foot apart. “Goodnight. I love you.”

“Goodnight,” Gawain said, reaching a hand across the gap to grasp his. “Love you.”

It had been over a thousand years. It had been over a thousand years. Lancelot pulled Gawain closer against his chest, wrapped arms around him when he hummed happily, buried his face in Gawain’s soft brown curls. 

Either it didn’t take him long to fall asleep like that, or he already had been dreaming. 

Unlike the previous morning, there was no confusion when Lancelot woke up. It was like he closed his eyes, then opened them to sunlight. In the early moments of wakefulness in the gentle light from the window, he could have cried in relief to find himself in Romania. 

“Morning,” He heard from the foot of the bed. Lancelot pushed himself into a sitting position to see Gawain leaning against the bedpost to pull on socks. “I don’t know if you--” Gawain's smile dropped a moment as he stood. “I don’t know if you recall--”

“I remember. I remember you,” said Lancelot, words stumbling over each other to make themselves heard. 

Gawain's nervous front melted into a real smile, and he opened his mouth to respond-- then a knock came on the door.

“Oh,” he flushed. “I ordered breakfast. I got tired of waiting for you to wake up. I’ll just-- Lord above.” 

Gawain fetched another tower of containers, and sat down next to them on the bed with an embarrassed grin. “I assume things are unchanged? I hope?”

“Unchanged,” Lancelot said firmly. 

“You know, we’re doing this all out of order,” Gawain said, moving to be closer. “Murder, marriage, confession then--”

Sitting up to meet him, so their faces were inches apart, Lancelot smiled softly and replied; “Unconventional.”

“Quite. We’ll obviously have to get divorced. Then, in a reasonable span of time-- say, three years-- a very public proposal. Then a horrendously expensive wedding so all of our family and friends can hate us and eat cake. For propriety.”

Lancelot scoffed. “Of course, we can’t have anyone thinking you’re some sort of-- scandalous strumpet. You have the reputation of a good virginal god king, to, to uphold.”

“See, you understand. This must be very by the books, I have oh-- oh god damn it. Can I kiss you?”

“Please!”

Gawain did, leaned forward and brought their lips together, slowly, as if waiting for him to protest or change his mind. Instead, Lancelot kissed him back, ran a hand down through Gawain's hair to rest at his neck and keep them pressed together. 

The food was long gone cold by the time they got to it.


End file.
